Yesterday afternoon, popular BitTorrent search site isoHunt.com went offline without any
advanced notice. The site was unreachable for hours until its site staff posted
an explanation for the downtime.

“Lawyers from our primary ISP decided to pull our plug
without any advance notice, as of 14:45 PST. No doubt related to our lawsuit
brought by the MPAA, but we don't have more information at this time until
people responsible come to work tomorrow,” the site notice read. “We will be
back in operation once we sort out this mess with our current ISP, or we get
new hardware ready at our new ISP.”

The entertainment industry has long targeted file sharing
sites but with limited success. The Motion Picture Association of America last
year filed lawsuits
against a number of BitTorrent sites, among them isoHunt.com, with information
on how to download the latest movies. European-based PirateBay.org has also
come under fire from authorities, but so far has managed to stay afloat.
In an effort to escape legal waters, PirateBay.org is currently investigating
the possibility of
purchasing Sealand, a man-made island. isoHunt.com, however, is making it
clear that it believes its operation is legal and has no intention of avoiding the
authorities.

An update posted today on isoHunt reads: “FYI, since this is
a common topic, no, moving servers to Sweden or Sealand isn't going to help. I
have no intention of hiding our servers. BitTorrent was created for legitimate
distribution of large media files, and we stand by that philosophy as a search
engine and aggregator.”

isoHunt.com is now hosting its temporary page from Canada,
and it is unclear when or if the site will resume operations from the U.S.

"Google fired a shot heard 'round the world, and now a second American company has answered the call to defend the rights of the Chinese people." -- Rep. Christopher H. Smith (R-N.J.)